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Sunday, 9 July 2017

Mosul liberated

In
the greatest defeat so far inflicted on ISIS the Iraqi army confirms
the complete end of ISIS resistance in Mosul.

The
Iraqi army has won the battle of Mosul. Though ISIS has
resisted with fierce determination, and has held the Iraqi army off
for 9 months, the last buildings in Mosul’s Old City still under
ISIS control have now been feed.

Since
there are no reports of surrenders by ISIS fighters, it is to be
presumed that the 300 or so of these fighters who were still
resisting in Mosul’s Old City are now all dead.

This
is not the end of ISIS in Iraq. The organisation still controls
stretches of territory in the west of the country along the Syrian
border, including the important town of Tal Afar, approximately 50
kilometres west of Mosul.

There
must also be a risk of underground ISIS cells still operating in
Mosul itself. However it is worth pointing out that the same
was predicted for Aleppo when the Al-Qaeda controlled eastern
district of that city was liberated from Al-Qaeda’s rule, and it
turned out to be untrue.

The
experience of Al-Qaeda rule was apparently sufficient to alienate
permanently the Sunni citizen of Aleppo, and to end whatever
lingering loyalty some of them might have had for violent Jihad.
Given that ISIS is even more brutal than Al-Qaeda, it could
that the experience of ISIS rule has similarly ended whatever loyalty
the people of Mosul might once have had for ISIS. That is my
belief and my wish.

The
Iraqi army appears to have grown in effectiveness during the battle
for Mosul. Its victory there will have emboldened further. The
liberation of Mosul will also have freed Iraqi troops for
redeployment elsewhere in Iraq – and conceivably by agreement with
the Syrian government in Syria – as the war to annihilate ISIS
continues.